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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: MarianneLuban AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ark of the Covenant
  • Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:57:45 +0100

On 20/08/2004 00:48, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

...
Why would any copiers throw in so many anachronisms into a text they considered "holy"? ...


Perhaps they didn't consider it quite so holy, in earlier times. You are the one throwing in an anachronism here.

... And why is it necessary for Moses to have written "any" of the Torah?

I didn't say it was necessary, only that your arguments that it is impossible are not secure.


By the way, how do we know that Manetho was not taken in by the kinds of
forged stelae which you mentioned?



They are rarities. I know of only the two I mentioned. While these texts are pseudographic, there is really nothing in them to be "taken in" by. The Famine Stela mention "seven lean years" in Egypt during the time of Djoser. Manetho never mentioned them--but maybe the Bible does. ...


Well, maybe. But don't go down the route of saying that Genesis is copied from the forgery. It could be the other way round, or there could just have been a general tradition of a seven year famine which found its way into both; or the resemblance may be accidental. It would anyway stretch every chronology to put Joseph in the time of Djoser, which would put Abraham back in the 1st dynasty.

... Seven low Niles in a row would have been a rare happening in Egypt. The Bekhten Stela (also called the Bentresh Stela) refers to a marriage between Ramesses II and a daughter of a king of a place called "Bekhten", which some feel is Afghanistan. It records that another daughter of this same foreign king was possessed by a demon and required an Egyptian physician to either heal her or act as an exorcist. Manetho doesn't mention this, either. Yet Hecataeus of Abdera was told by priests of the Ramesseum (the mortuary temple of Ram. II) that the pharaoh had fought in far-flung locations, so there was a legend there that had persisted.


He is known to have fought at Kadesh on the Orontes, which is a long way from Luxor.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






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